


Blindsided

by domini_moonbeam



Category: 19天 - Old先 | 19 Days - Old Xian
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Clubbing, First Kiss, Getting Together, Light Angst, M/M, Misunderstandings, Tumblr Prompt, romantic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-16
Updated: 2020-08-16
Packaged: 2021-03-06 00:34:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,156
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25934488
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/domini_moonbeam/pseuds/domini_moonbeam
Summary: Celebrating graduation, Mo is at a club with Xi and a little too drunk, contemplating his future and bad crushes when She Li shows up.There is kissing. A fist fight. And more kissing.
Relationships: Mo Guanshan/Zhan Zhengxi (19 Days)
Comments: 18
Kudos: 127





	Blindsided

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! This fic came from an idea prompt by 19Elaine over on tumblr! <3<3<3<3

Mo lost Zhengxi somewhere in the club, between the bar and the dance floor and too many shots. They’d come in a large group from their graduating class—some sort of last party before everyone set off for college or wherever most of them would end up. Mo wasn’t going to college. No one even asked if he was. He’d only even finished high school because of Xi. After Jian Yi vanished and He Tian left, Mo had never really expected Xi to still hang out with him. They were too much alike in some ways and different in others. They were both too quiet, too temperamental, but they had completely different home lives and goals. Zhengxi studied hard while Mo worked most of his non-school hours. But somehow, for whatever reason, they had continued to fall into step beside one another in school and out of it.

Mo was buzzed and warm when he finally came off the dance floor, heading for the tall table with their drinks and a few familiar faces. Xi wasn’t there. Maybe he’d already left. He had said something about driving to his university city to look at apartments tomorrow, like Mo was going with for the drive. He leaned against the table and pulled out his phone to text him, asking what time tomorrow. Maybe he should go home and sleep too. Especially if he was supposed to share the driving time.

He sent the text and then found himself looking too long at the photo of Xi on his contacts.

Mo had decided he had terrible taste in crushes. Not that his crushes were bad—but that they were wildly inappropriate for him to have. At least He Tian had been kind of a bad person like Mo was, more than a little messed up, even if he was way too rich to be slumming with him even as a kid. But Xi? Zhan Zhengxi was smart and focused and good. He came from a real family. They had dinner together and went to his activities and his graduation. They were even too good to tell their son not to hangout with Mo. He didn’t really deserve to be his friend let alone have a crush on him. He had just turned his phone off when a hand slid up his back, following his spine.

For a second Mo didn’t even react to it. They were in a club after all. It could be a few people that he knew got flirty when they were drunk, or a complete stranger, and he was more than a little buzzed himself. But as soon as the hand reached the back of his neck his nerves screamed alarm bells, his body tensing and straightening. He turned around, trying to push the arm off but She Li already had a good grip on the back of his neck and caught his wrist with his other hand, turning him like they were dancing, face to face, before pressing him up against the nearest wall.

She Li had graduated last year. Mo hadn’t seen him since—hadn’t really seen him must before either, not in those years since before He Tian took off. They’d crossed paths a few times in all those years, coincidence aligning against him, and it usually ended violently or in Mo bolting for the nearest exit. “Did he finally leave you?” She Li asked almost conversationally, his hand sliding around to the front of Mo’s neck now that he was pushed up against the wall.

Mo’s vision pulsed a little at the sides from having moved too fast. He was too drunk for this. “Who?” he ground out, trying to sound just as cold as She Li, but that had never been possible.

She Li grinned, those wolf eyes winking at him in the moving club lights. His hips pressed forward into Mo’s and he sucked a breath at the feel of his semi-erection. “Everyone leaves you, Red. Everyone but me.”

Mo shivered and looked away, at the writhing crowd on the dance floor and the couples making out at the bar. Anywhere but directly at She Li. He would see into him if he did. He always saw right down to whatever Mo didn’t want seen. “Fuck off,” he managed.

She Li leaned even closer, until Mo could taste the vodka on his breath. “Are you ready to give in? Or should I let you sink for another year or two? All alone when even that one is gone.”

 _That one_. He meant Xi. _That one_. Had that been what kept She Li away all these years? Mo knew Xi could be a scary son of a bitch when he was pressed, but he couldn’t think of any time She Li would have noticed that. Or was this just another coincidence? He saw him at this club, alone, and came to try his luck in breaking him down? Mo hated how well it was working.

“You know, I won’t leave you,” She Li promised, it might have even sounded sweet if he couldn’t hear that underlying threat. He wouldn’t let him get away alive once he had him. She Li rolled his hips against Mo’s, harder now, fingers flexing on his neck.

Mo closed his eyes, mind hazy but a part of it still screaming at him to at least try to get away. At least say something hateful, like he wasn’t long since broken. But nothing came out. He wasn’t wrong, was he? Everyone Mo had left eventually. And he didn’t even want to stop them—didn’t even begrudge them for it. His mom had remarried and moved. He Tian had left and that was probably for the best for him and his rich ass family. And Xi would go away, go to school, get a job, probably get married and have kids. He wanted those things for him. But he knew he didn’t belong in his life either.

When She Li kissed him, Mo tensed but didn’t fight. He sucked the vodka from his tongue and felt She Li’s moan vibrate through his chest. For a second his drunk mind wanted to pretend this was Xi, play out some fantasy, but it was impossible. He had never kissed Zhengxi before but this wasn’t how it would be. When She Li bit into his lip, he tasted blood and sucked that from his tongue too when he started feed it to him again. It was best he couldn’t pretend, he would feel guilt for that later, for degrading his friend like that.

She Li’s grip on his neck tightened rather than loosened the more they kissed and a part of Mo hoped he’d strangle him before he had to find out how far he’d let this go.

And then She Li’s weight was knocked off of him, to the side, all contact lost.

His eyes flung open to see Zhengxi tackling She Li to the club floor, barely even landing before he cocked back his arm and punched the other man in the face, knocking his head back against the sticky floor. “I told you!” Xi yelled over the music, loud enough for Mo to catch it as he staggered away from the wall to stare at the scene.

She Li kicked at the ground, twisting to roll them but as soon as he managed it, Xi kept them going until he landed on top again. She Li had his fingers twisted in the front of Xi’s shirt, ripping the thin material, blood painting his mouth where Xi had split his lip and yellow eyes wild with rage. But Xi didn’t flinch, he just snarled down at him. It only took a matter of minutes before they were being pulled apart, lifted back to their feet by the crowd. Zhengxi was still talking but it was too low now for anyone but She Li and the people closest to them to hear.

She Li bared his teeth but shrugged off the arms holding him and turned and left.

Mo leaned back against the wall, maybe still too drunk for this. Xi had just saved him. But he had also seen him making out with She Li—which was confusing and humiliating. When Zhengxi came back to him, he cringed and looked down, but Xi’s hand caught his jaw, turning his face up. His blue eyes were serious, as usual, and looking him over. Mo blushed when he realized he was being checked for injuries. “’M fine,” he said.

Xi frowned, still holding him by the jaw, thumb actually stroking one side while fingers fanned the other. “Did you have too much to drink?” he asked, the hint of worry in his tone unmistakable.

“I guess so.” Mo shrugged, embarrassed.

Zhengxi took in his lean against the wall. “He didn’t drug you, did he?”

Mo snorted.

Xi nodded like that was answer. “Okay. Let’s get out of here. We’ll get you some coffee someplace.”

Mo looked up before he could be pulled from the wall. “What did you say to him?”

“What?”

“You said, ‘I told you,’” Mo reminded. “What were you talking about?”

Zhengxi let go of him, using the hand that had been touching Mo’s jaw and cheeks to claw back his own hair. For a second Mo wished he’d kept his mouth shut and kept that touch a little longer. Zhengxi seemed to hesitate to answer. He didn’t usually hesitate on anything. He either did a thing or he didn’t. Finally he nodded and leaned in, so he could say it rather than yell it over the music, his breath brushing Mo’s cheek. “I told him if he came near you I’d make him pay. I told him you were mine and that I’d kill him before I let him hurt you.”

Mo couldn’t breathe for long seconds. When Zhengxi leaned back enough for their eyes to meet again, he knew he wasn’t joking. “When did you say that to him?”

“Years ago.”

“Why?”

Zhengxi looked at him a little oddly, like maybe Mo really was too drunk to be standing tonight. “Because it’s true.”

Mo blinked at him, hating the way he felt tears burning his own eyes. “But…” But he wasn’t his. They’d never done anything but hang out, do homework, watch basketball, go to the beach in the summer, and play video games in the winter. They’d never touched more than was totally platonic. But he couldn’t say any of that so he just said, “But you’re leaving.”

Zhengxi’s brow pinched. “We’re leaving,” he corrected, slowly and clearly, like Mo had a brain injury. “We’re going to look at apartments tomorrow.”

Mo hated the tears that burned tracks down his cheeks, collecting the flares of neon lights. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

Xi sighed, almost groaned, the way he did when Mo was really annoying him. He reached out and hooked his fingers behind his neck, firm but not the bruising grip of She Li. He pulled him forward, off the wall, and kissed him. He tasted like coconut and pineapple from that damned Pina Colada someone ordered for him earlier. The kiss was deep, demanding, devouring, but not suffocating like She Li’s had been. His limbs twitched, waking up, arms curling around Xi’s waist and pressing himself closer—like being close enough was an impossibility that couldn’t be understood. When the kiss broke they were still clutching each other, Xi’s forehead pressing against Mo’s. “You’re so dense, sometimes…” he muttered.

Mo wanted to argue but wasn’t sure he could. His world had just been blown to pieces and he felt like he’d be spending the next week trying to figure out what had been happening the last few years of his life. “I’m moving with you?” he asked, because at least he was too drunk to stop himself from saying anything at all.

Xi untangled them enough to start leading him toward the exit, arm still around his shoulders. “I thought you were. Don’t you want to?” he asked.

“Yes,” Mo answered, a little grateful for the liquor now. Completely sober he might have been too mortified to say anything at all.

Xi nodded like he’d known that—just like he’d known everything. “Then stop kissing other people, or you’ll really piss me off.” He said it in that flat tone of his, like he didn’t really care one way or the other, but Mo knew that tone was a lie. He cared. It turned out he cared a lot more than Mo had let himself imagine.

“Where are we going?” he asked, cringing at the bright lights near the exit.

“Coffee and then bed.”

“Whose bed?”

Zhengxi made that annoyed groan sound again, but his arm squeezed Mo’s shoulders. “Does it matter?”

Mo bit the inside of his lip to keep from smiling. Because it didn’t matter which bed.

**Author's Note:**

> [tumblr](https://dominimoonbeam.tumblr.com/)


End file.
